New mobo ans psu, now no windows.

[giterdun]

My psu fried, I bought a new mobo and psu under the advice of the PC store. Anyway now I can't boot into windows. It gets to the windows logo then restarts. All I have is the restore CD. I really don't want to restore unless I have too. What can I do? I can't even switch to the C drive in DOS, it says invalid drive spec. Machine is an Emachine, 2.7 GHz running windows XP.

[jlreich]

Hi giterdun and welcome to the PcGuide forums. :)

What happened to your PSU that you say it is fried? And why did the pc store recommend to replace the motherboard?

There are a couple of problems going on here. First since you only have a restore CD it most likely will not even work since you replaced the motherboard. Restore CD's are usually tied to the motherboard they were made on and usually will not proceed if it doesn't find the right motherboard when you boot from it. Unless you replaced the mobo with the exact same model that was in there.

Next problem is windows doesn't like to wake up in another system, which that's what it is like when replacing the mobo. Again, unless you replaced it with the same model.

Another thing to consider is if the PSU was fried due to a large power surge, or lightning strike, other components could have been damaged as well including your hard drive. :(

You may want to try slaving your hard drive to another system and save any important files just to be safe. And/or test the drive using the HDD manufacturers diagnostics from a bootable floppy or CD. http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29081

If you could tell us more details about what happened to the PSU and what the pc shop told you it would help us to decide what the best course of action would be.

Also what brand and model of PSU and mobo did you get for replacements?

[giterdun]

The psu is made by "echo star" and the mobo is "mach speed". I know they are cheapo, the other forums I have tried seem to get off on telling me how stupid I am for buying that junk, all I want now is to get my PC up again. '
The psu is fried, I opened it up, its toast, we haven't had any storms here since last use, the store guy said he gets these machines in pretty often with the same problem, maybe a factory flaw, who knows, nothing else in my house went out. He tried a new psu in the machine first, it didn't work, it was like the machine was unplugged, nothing. The inconvience of slaving my data to another machine is about the same as reloading everything after a restore, I don't have any important data, just junk, but good junk, junk I spent a long time working on. A pack rats nest is worthless, but nonetheless valueable to the pack rat.

[jlreich]

the other forums I have tried seem to get off on telling me how stupid I am for buying that junk, all I want now is to get my PC up again.
I understand. You won't get any of that around here, if you did it would promptly be taken care of. ;)

Slaving the drive is up to you. You have to determine how important your data is to you.

It sounds like you mobo just went bad. It happens unfortunately.

Like I said in the first post windows does not like waking up in new system and will most often not boot at all, or if it boots it will be very unstable and crash a lot.

You can try the restore disks but I doubt it will work. If you had a full windows disk you could do a repair install and be just fine. Have a look here for more info. http://www.theeldergeek.com/replace_motherboard.htm

I can't even switch to the C drive in DOS, it says invalid drive spec.
DOS cannot access an NTFS file system which XP and win2000 usually are NTFS. So that is normal.

If the restore CD doesn't work and you don't have a full XP install CD there is not much you can do. :( The only option is to go out and pick up a copy of XP. :(

If you wanted to you could download a copy of a Linux live CD like Knoppix (http://iso.linuxquestions.org/distro.php?distro=5) and boot from it just to make sure everything in the system is working right. It runs completely from the CD or DVD and doesn't touch your hard drive at all. And you could use it for an operating system until you get XP back up and running.

[giterdun]

I have a friend here that will help me, he has all the OSs and stuff, but he can't till next week. Thanks for the help.

Another thing I noticed is that PC is the only electronic in the house not a surge protector, it will be now.

[jlreich]

No problem. Good luck. :)

Oh and give Knoppix a try. Just burn it as an "image" with any burning program and boot from it. It's very easy and will allow you to use your system until you can get XP fixed.

[giterdun]

We took out the HD and put it in another machine, scanned it for errors, seemed OK, put it back in, tried the XP repair but my password would not work. I know it was right. So the heck with it, did a restore, no go, still does the same thing. So we reformatted and installed XP pro, now I get an error that says "unmountable boot volume". :mad:
The PC store said he could fix that for me. Now another problem I foresee, the XP disc is a copy and there is no serial #, don't remember where it came from. So I know it will ask for a serial # eventually. The store said they would refund my money so I may just give them the machine in return and get a new one.

The heck with all this crap. :mad:

[giterdun]

I've tried low level formatting the HDD, then reinstalled windows. Still got the "unmountable boot volume" error. I tried chkdsk /p once more, it said there were errors on the disc. I had the HDD checked at the PC store, it checked out OK.
Nothing I do gets rid of that error.
I'm starting to think I may have a bad XP disc.

[giterdun]

I tried another XP disc, same deal. My solution ended up being, took the whole machine to the PC store, got all my money returned, gave the man the machine, bought a new Dell. I had a different diagnosis told to me every place I tried. It would seem in the PC world things could be a little more cut and dried. I was a mechanic up until my back gave out, it happens with cars too. A person can go to 5 auto shops and get 5 different diagnosis. Solution, learn to fix it yourself. Up until this problem I have managed to do that with a little help. Life goes on though. I like my new Dell.

[jlreich]

Sorry to hear of all the trouble you went trough. It's difficult to say exactly what was wrong with the system. It's possible when the PSU went bad it took everything else with it. Most of the time when PSU's die they go out quietly, sometimes they send a surge through the entire system frying everything.

Well I hope the you enjoy your new system, and may it be trouble free for you. ;)

Thanks for posting back the results. :)